‘The trials and tribulations of an amateur horse trainer’

With years of experience in owning and working with horses growing up, I was occasionally approached to ‘knock a horse into shape’ by those who had purchased a pony for their children only to have trouble with it. One such occasion came during a period when a horse I’d bought for my son, Chris, was recovering from an attack of azoturia. It was then I realised how fortunate I was.

Read more: ‘I wanted my children to have more than I had growing up’

I recall an ugly little grey pony with an equally ugly attitude by the name of Hippo. I’d collected him from the farm where he lived and had taken him to our paddock. It was ‘fun and games’ before we’d even unloaded him. Pulling up on our front lawn, I went to the jockey door — the little door fitted to many floats that allow access to the horse contained within without having to drop the tailgate. Somehow Hippo had managed to get under the breast bar in the float, which is designed to keep horses in the main part of the float, and was poking his head at the door.

Despite being tied up, he tried to disembark through that door. He got his front feet to the lawn but the length of the lead rope stopped him going any further. With his head tucked under his chest, restrained by the lead rope, he strained to get the rest of his body out through the door. It was impossible, after unclipping the lead rope, his hips were too wide to fit through the opening. If he had been able to fit all the way through, it would have been a simple matter to allow him to let himself out.

With monumental strength, we got him standing on a bale of hay with his front feet and were then able to persuade him to walk a few steps backwards to fully re-enter the float. I slammed that door closed and went to the back, dropped the tailgate and entered. I unhitched him and led him out onto the lawn.

He was a nasty little pony and I thought back to some similar nasty little ponies we’d owned when Chris first started riding. It didn’t take Chris long to get him going nicely, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before the little rider who was unfortunate enough to own him, lost control again. His favourite trick was to stop suddenly and drop his head. The rider would have no balance and they’d end up sliding down his neck to end up on the ground. The first thing we did was fit a monkey strap to the saddle. This is a little strap that is fitted at the front, stretching across between two ‘dees’. The rider could then hold that strap to help keep their balance.

Hippo went home and his owners were so impressed with the improvement in his behaviour that they were soon recommending Chris as the ideal rider to deal with other little ponies. The biggest problem with nasty little ponies is that they are too small for a normal sized rider. My son was an ideal size.

I’ve forgotten how many ponies he dealt with in one way or another, but his bank account grew quite nicely. Some people actually paid him more than we asked, they were so grateful to have a nice pony back again, and some of them were repeat visitors.

We had a small area of land at the back of the factory where my husband worked. There had been several houses on this land and when they were removed the sets of concrete steps were left in place. They were a nuisance to us, being scattered here and there across the land. My biggest worry was that a pony would misbehave and toss Chris, where he could easily have landed on a large lump of concrete and been seriously injured.

I decided I’d bury two of these concrete steps and set to on the biggest one with a shovel. The ground was sandy, digging was easy. I soon had a good sized hole and stepped down into it. I dug away, removing a huge amount of soil. I took soil from under the concrete, digging in as far as I thought was safe. Finally I decided that it would be unsafe to dig any further so scrambled out and found the crowbar that I intended using to heave the concrete into the hole. I didn’t think I would be able to move it, but I could try. I slammed the point into the ground, immediately behind the edge of the concrete lump and used all my weight to push down on it, hoping to dislodge the great mass. I was amazed, and horrified, to see the lump of concrete at least three steps high slide into the hole. It must have been right on the point of balance. If I had even touched it while attempting to exit the hole, it would have come down on top of me and I would have been killed.

I pictured my husband peering into the hole as he passed by on his way home. He’d be expecting to see a massive lump of concrete, he wouldn’t have been expecting to see part of my dead body. My blood ran cold.

While we waited for our beloved pony Prince to recover, we indulged in a spot of horse dealing. I’d buy a cheap horse or pony and either Chris or I would ride it, train it, and resell it.

One of those ponies was Blue. He had a nasty habit of chasing any child who took a shortcut though his paddock and he’d invariably bail them up. I’d hear screams of terror, I’d race out, and rescue the hapless child. He loaded perfectly the day that I bought him, but that was the last time he willingly walked onto the float. From then on it was a fight to get him to comply.

One day we got him loaded set off for pony club. After a good day, we went through the usual drama to get him back on the float to go home. We hadn’t gone far when he started to kick. Crash, bang, bang crash. The car shook as he performed his war dance in the following float. I said, “Kick ya little sod, kick!”

Chris looked round and yelled, “Mum, there’s bits of wood flying everywhere.”

I pulled up and we ran to the back of the float. Blue was still kicking high. It was unsafe to enter the float. Eventually he settled down and stood quietly, his side heaving. I didn’t think it was wise to drive home, so drove as far as a farm belonging to one of our members of pony clubwhere I left Blue till I could get the float repaired. I let down the tailgate and unclipped him. That horse walked off with one of the straps on his cover hanging. The buckle was missing. I drove home with the smashed up float attached.

The float had originally been a furniture trailer, the sides were wide boards that were easy to remove and replace. Along the top of the timbered section was a length of angle iron, and welded to that were some steel ‘dees’. One of the dees held the missing buckle. Blue must have rubbed against the side of the trailer and somehow managed to clip himself to the dee. He obviously didn’t like being restrained in such a manner so he kicked. He kicked until he managed to get himself free of the restraint.

I thought back to a day when I went to feed Prince before I went to work, he was standing at the other side of the paddock and even though I had a bucket of feed for him, he stayed where he was. When I got home from work he was in the same place. I investigated and discovered that he had also clipped himself to the fence, but his reaction was to stand quietly until someone came to save him. I have never worked out how either pony manage to clip himself to something he shouldn’t have been clipped to. I had done the clips up in the correct manner, there was no way they should have got caught up, but they did. Mystery unsolved.

Blue was grazing in the orchard with two other horses, White Slipper, an ex-racehorse, and Caramel, another wonderful horse I bought for myself. I was in the kitchen when I heard horses clip clopping along the path on their way to the front gate. Someone had left the gate to the orchard open. No time to wonder who the culprit was, I had to stop those horses. I raced out to see them exiting the front gate that was wide open. They crossed the road and approached a cattle stop. I was confident they wouldn’t cross over the railway lines that formed the cattle stop, but I was wrong. With White Slipper in the lead, followed by Blue, they began to cross. Caramel was impatient to get to the luscious grass on the other side. She gave Blue a nudge to hurry him up and his leg slipped down between the railway lines. I fully expected him to break a leg, but he was able to pull his leg out, tearing the skin on his shin as he did so. I raced back home and rang the vet. I had an emergency on my hands.

The vet did an excellent job of stitching the injured leg and it healed with hardly any sign that there had been an injury, but it was time to sell that difficult pony. In spite of some of the trials and tribulations, I made a good profit on the sale.

Has your passion ever led you into a career? Do you like horses?

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